The Final Week
Hi, everybody!
After what my calendar claims is ten weeks but what my heart feels has only been a couple of days, my time at IFES has sadly come to an end. There’s so much I can say about this summer, so I’ll do my best to keep this an appropriate length (read: not short).
The Cases
First, plugging https://electionjudgments.org/. Not only is it awesome, but it also contains the work of some very accomplished people who spend their waking hours collecting, translating, interpreting, and summarizing cases so that anyone, anywhere, can see what other people are doing to fight for democracy. I learned so much while working on this project, and it deserves a wider audience.
If you’ve read through a few of my blog posts, you’ve gotten a small peek into all the kinds of cases and issues that came across my desk. For every case we decided to brief, we probably had to cut another seven that we had already collected. Not that the stories in those cases or the issues being tested or litigated weren’t important – certainly they were, and yet we had limited time and focused on the "big" things. But there’s an argument to be made that it is the smaller, more “routine” instances of corruption, fraud, and dishonesty that test the strength of democracy more effectively than sensational stories of unbelievably widespread occurrences. Is it not the complacency towards smaller acts that creates a breeding ground for bigger acts?
Whatever the answer is, it doesn't matter at the current moment. The bigger acts are already here – both in the U.S., and in other countries. Thinking back to the World Bank forum I attended during week 5, cabinet members from at least five different continents would not have attended a forum on democracy – in the middle of the D.C. summer, during one of the hottest and most humid summers on record – if worries did not exist. Because of how many people have already voted and still plan to vote in democratic elections this year – AND because of the sheer number of attempts to stifle democracy and elections – democratic stability is at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
Is there a case that can really "sum up" everything I've seen and researched this summer? Not really. While the Niedenthal case from the Marshall Islands and SCOTUS's Alexander opinion are nothing alike, they still ultimately concern power, who gets to hold it, and who gets to exercise it. The actors are different, but the same can be said for any other election law case. Instead of claiming a single case as representative of my time here, it feels more valuable to reflect on the many forms of the same few actions. Judgments over candidate eligibility, citizenship, and voting rights all effect the ebb and flow of power within these democracies. Restrictions on who can vote affect the ability to clean house in national assemblies. Restrictions on who can run for office can keep entrenched groups in power well past their expiration date.
The People
Beyond all of the amazing things I got to learn and experience, IFES wouldn't be what it is without its people, and since this is my blog and I make the rules, they all deserve recognition too. I could not have asked for two better supervisors than Jordan Shipley and Richard Nash, who showed me how engaging, exciting, and ultimately fun the work they get to do is.
Jordan guided me through many long hours of researching cases about stolen ballots, forged ballots, stolen ballots that were replaced by forged ballots, free speech demonstrations against government officials, student protestors, riots, leadership coups in political parties, unconstitutional candidate exclusions, sexism in political parties, gender violence, corruption, grifting, honest mistakes made by unassuming voters, and so much more. I'm a better legal writer because of her help, and she never judged when summarizing a photograph of a court ruling about electronic evidence rules from a completely different legal system at 4:18 PM on a Tuesday may have beaten me for a few minutes.
Richard was an invaluable source for stability, insight into IFES and the greater sphere of international development law, and discussions about the ways in which NGOs and international organizations can adapt to what's going on (especially after the collection of speakers we heard at the World Bank). Listening to his own experiences and career – much like the rest of this internship – clued me into ideas for a career that I hadn't even considered.
Catherine, Chelsea, Cassie, and Kai are incredible and brilliant people I got to meet during my internship. Chelsea was the first member of the Center at IFES whom I got to meet, and she and the rest of the team could not have made me feel more welcome to ask questions and learn about what they did. Catherine and Cassie were gracious enough to let me sit in on a project meeting between them and Richard and let me see the nuts and bolts behind on-the-ground election data work. Kai, whom I was also lucky enough to meet early on, could not have been kinder and wasted no time making me feel like I was a part of the team.
Lastly, a thanks to Eli and Zoey for being such fun people to spend time with around the office. We all met during our first day of intern orientation, and I relished every chance to grab a coffee break with Eli and talk about Georgia or talk to Zoey about her projects with the Africa team.
The End
So, onward to 2L we go. For those of you who tagged along on this summer of mine, I hope you enjoyed reading everything I decided to share. If you've also read the blogs from my classmates (which you definitely should, as they helped inspire me when I was struggling to write something interesting), you may have noticed that mine reads a lot more like a disorganized, scattershot journal that I accidentally published for the world to see. Rest assured, that was by (perhaps ill-conceived) design.
I've mentioned it before, but W&M was my undergrad. By May 2026, if all goes well, I'll have spent a cumulative seven years in Williamsburg. I'll have received two degrees from W&M (a third is not currently in my plans). This university has been an important part of my life, I've learned more here than anywhere, and the school gave me this blog to share my summer with you all. And so, in line with some of my previous education as an undergraduate, a tool like this becomes a space where I get to throw ideas together and see what breaks (and what doesn't). One of my previous blog posts discussed the Tripathi case from Nepal and the Brandenburg case from the U.S. and, on their faces, its hard to see similarities. Student protestors running a social media campaign against entrenched politicians elicit much more sympathy than Clarence Brandenburg, and the type of speech isn't even similar. The students were calling for political change; Brandenburg said that and much more. So, any attempt a strict legal comparison of the two cases probably isn't going to work or yield anything interesting. Instead, why not roll around the moral questions of these cases (called "policy" in law school) and see where it leads us?
Being able to do that with the U.S. and cases from across the globe has been incredibly rewarding and helps me grasp some of the abstraction in our classroom. Granted, this was mostly a background process; the work I did at IFES was my pride for the summer, and I'm excited to wrap up the last few things I have outstanding for the team. But, on the off chance that any prospective law students stumble across this blog, I'll ask this rhetorically: could you get this experience at another law school, or at another internship? Yes, almost certainly. William & Mary Law is not the only school that has programs for students interested in transitional justice, public international law, and similar topics. Nor is IFES the only organization doing this type of work. But in the span of ten weeks, I've gone from being a complete outsider to the world of international election law, to being slightly less of an outsider. I got the opportunity to do it here, and I'm proud I got to do it with the people I worked with.
Thank you for reading along this summer, wish me luck for 2L, and make sure to vote this November!
Hank